Health Costs

With the incoming Trump administration and Republican-led Congress looking to ways to reduce federal spending, this Poll finds that the Medicare and Medicaid programs remain broadly popular, and more people favor more spending on those programs than less spending. Among potential actions on health, the public sees price transparency and limiting chemicals in food as top priorities. Few say so about cuts to Medicaid and restrictions on abortion.

This graphing tool allows users to explore trends in workplace-sponsored health insurance premiums and worker contributions over time for different categories of employers based on results from the annual Employer Health Benefits Survey. Breakouts are available by firm size, region and industry, as well as for firms with relatively few or many part-time workers, higher- or lower-wage workers, and older or younger workers.

KFF’s January 2025 Prescription Drug Advertisements Poll looks at the public’s experiences with prescription drug advertisements, whether they’ve talked to a doctor about advertised drugs, and how this has influenced the care they receive.

This analysis compares 2021 data about deaths in the U.S. and 11 other large, wealthy countries by age and cause to understand the primary drivers of the longevity gap between the U.S. and the comparable countries. It finds that the primary reasons for the gap in 2021 were chronic disease, COVID-19 and substance use disorders.

Promoting price transparency in health care is a policy approach with bi-partisan support in Congress and the public at large. This analysis examines the vast troves of price transparency data that payers are required and finds unlikely prices, inconsistencies, and other oddities that pose major challenges for efforts to use it to promote competition and drive down prices.

Republican and Independent Voters See the Economy as Their Top Issue; Coronavirus and Race Relations Top Democrats’ List Most Americans (62%) worry that the political pressure from the Trump administration will lead the Food and Drug Administration to rush to approve a coronavirus vaccine without making sure that it is…

This fact sheet offers a look back at 10 issues that KFF tracked closely during 2023 in its polling, policy analysis and journalism, including summaries of major findings and news stories.

Headlines regularly call attention to pockets of fraudulent activity in the health care arena – scams that amount to millions and potentially billions of dollars. The stories typically focus on catching the crooks but not so much on efforts to prevent fraud, waste and abuse in health care programs. Both…

This brief explains the role of federal and state antitrust agencies in challenging anticompetitive practices among hospitals and other health care providers, including the legal authority of federal and state agencies, the role that they play in enforcing antitrust laws, and proposed options for strengthening their authority.